New guy, feel free to break chops and bust balls

Fretless Six

Fretless Six

New Member
Hey all, I've been lurking around here for a bit looking for information on my first project a CB200 that I purchased on Craigslist, embarassingly enough it's also my first bike.
A little bit about me I suppose; I've been a gearhead since I can remember, we've always had quirky machinery in the driveway Fiats, Alfas, a Renault, a couple of BMW's, some older 911's and most recently a used Maserati. Oddly enough they never wanted anything to do with gaskets, grease or fittings, which makes no sense since these things (usually Italian and mostly French) only work when they feel like it, or as my father and I like to say "It has personality". When they did work you'd get 45 glorious minutes and then be stranded somewhere you probably had no business being in the first place.

I always wanted a project, but bikes were forbidden in my house, now that I've been out on my own for two years I can pretty much do what I want (although I still feel some guilt, I don't know why that is.) I'm from Long Island, New York and I just recently moved to Grand Rapids to go to school out here. I play bass and enjoy music just as much as I do bikes and cars.

I hope not to ask too many stupid questions, I am aware that there's a search function, but since this is my first time doing this I'm not going to pretend I have any idea I know what I'm talking about, so I'll probably ask some dumb questions, like "how do I get this friggen motor un-seized" or "It's supposed to make that grinding noise right?" and finally "Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to do it, but pretend for a second I did anyway, how do I get it back the way it should be".

Thanks ahead of time, I know you're all extremely knowledgeable, I've lurked on here and learned more in 6 months time than I could have otherwise.
 
Yup what he said..........Michigan? Welcome from the West coast........of Michigan, that is.
 
I meant to say that I was in Michigan, forgot that apparently. I'll post pictures tomorrow of the bike, the engine's out and seized up (from sitting for 20 years).

I have some ideas as to the direction I'm going to go in, I think I'm going to do black frame, gray tank and seat and then do tan upholstery with those brown gum grips. I think a fairly short seat with a small cowl would look good, what I'll end up doing is taking the stock seat's foam and then shaving it down to the dimensions I want and then either buy a fiberglass one that sort of looks like what I want, or if that doesn't work at all I'll just fab one myself out of fiberglass.

I like the way pipes look when they're routed under the seat, almost motogp style. I'm going to try and see if I can get some pipes bent up to do that provided there's enough clearance and not too much cutting and welding (I don't have a welder so I'll tackle that problem when I get there), or if I can route them out of the seat cowl that would be trick too. Then I'm hoping to attach the signals to the rear wheel, I just don't know where the tail light is going to go, maybe mounted in the seat depending on where the pipes end up.

But all of this is conjecture, I'm sure she'll tell me what she wants me to do once I start working on her. Any other ideas?
 
Welcome!

About the engine- there are a few tricks to un-seizing it. First and foremost, spray some type of penetrant in the spark plug holes. And wd-40 is not a penetrant.

Better yet, start a build thread with lots of pics!
 
Welcome to the board. I, too, am new to the board and have been tinkering with my first bike (CB200, no shame!). If you want to know what NOT to do, just shoot me a message. I am now trying to figure out why oil pisses out of the tach-gear all over my leg and everything else every time I go out on the highway (which is also something you probably shouldn't do on the '200).

-Scott
 
Awesome! It seems that there's a lot of people here who either still have their 200 or had one as a first bike. I'll be sure to shoot an email as soon as the bike is running and I get the damn motor to be unseized (is that a word? I'm just going to use clusterfuck as a stand in). Anyway, I'm picking up the bike tomorrow so we'll see what I'm in for exactly. He had been emailing me that he was going to remove the cam chain because he couldn't get the pistons to move, I told him not to do it so I could save the chain if it was still in good shape. I have the shop manual and a whole bunch of Marvel Mystery Oil, we'll see if that does the trick.
 
I saw a trick once where they filled the cylinder with gas and lit it on fire and let it burn for an hour or so, then placed a 2x4 on the piston and whacked the piss out of it with a hammer. The theory being that the heat causes the metal to expand, making it easier to budge... with a fucking hammer, of course.
 
Ya man. Just fill the jugs with Marvel, or Kerosene and let it sit for a few days. Than try to spin the motor from the crank. Dont use the kicker.

Just know you'll still need to pull the top end and replace the rings and hone the cylinders (at least) so you may as well order a new gasket kit now.
 
What I have actually done in the past with stuck engines is..........penetrating oil, I used Cyclo, followed with any ATF and let sit for 24 hours minimum. The engines actually ran afterwards, I did this on old outboard engines a long time ago for customers that didn't want to spend any money. I also saw a 200 on GR craigs today.........nice shape, 400.
 
Ok, so I'm going to let it sit for a day or so and see what happens. What about honing the cylinders, Honda has the bore listed as 55.5mm, I can't find a ball hone that size. Any ideas?
 
Call any small engine repair place local to you. Theyll probobly do it for $20. You can probobly get it to run w/o doind a top end rebuild, but why take the chance of having a motor that has blow by and runs poorly, or worse shits the bed a month down the road.? Rust in the cylinder is cancer. Itll just get worse and cause more problems.
 
Welcome to the crazyness. I was never alloud to touch Motorbikes at home and it took me 10 years of living on my own to realize I could get one, now I have 2 and if I had $$ I would have many more.

Good luck getting the old girl unstuck. At least the little CB should be an easy first motor to work on.

Cheers,

Maritime.
 
The only reason that you would need to have it bored out is if the damage to the cyl walls was so severe that a honing wouldnt fix it. A small engine repair shop probobly wont have the eqiuipment to do an overbore though.
 
Yepper.........what he said, it will have to come apart no matter what and never bore if you don't have to.
 
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